Airliners.net

I have been viewing airliners.net since 1999 when I was still a kid. The last time I thought the site was really good was around 2004. I don't spend much time on the site anymore because I think it looks too cluttered the quality of the pictures and the variety have pictures have diminished, and the search function is just downright terrible. These days if I make a search for an specific aircraft, from a specific time, at a specific airport I just get no hits when I was mysteriously getting many hits for the same searches during the early years of the site.

It's still a great site but only a shell of what it once was. I never waste my time on the forums so I can't comment on that.

The photos are great and if you have a question regarding aviation most of the time you get someone knowledgeable answering.

That's where it ends. If you want to discuss something, you better agree 100% with the almighty moderators or they will either delete your post and/or give you a warning. Discussion is one-sided and civil discourse/opinions are not welcome here.

FlyerTalk is much better in that regard.

You will find interesting pictures, especially from older posters (slide scans), and pilots or flight attendants. It gets hairy when it comes to the forum, where people decide to blame anything from the weather to the telephone on the French, the Americans, or even Asians (i. E. racist.) People are weird online, but it is sad to see that the moderators do not bother intervening. So do visit, but don't bother joining.It's wacky out there. Stay sane,

Below average. Mainly for junk user forums with SJW moderators and bad search functionality. It was just redone last year from the very dated site.

Regarding UI/UX the site has really taken a dump. While it looks a lot better than the old site, the functionality of searching for photos is unusable. The old site it was simple, even if it was dated.

The forums, well it's been comical. For years it was plagued by (likely) paid trolls and spammers. I noticed quite a few that are very pro-United Airlines (formally Continental) and would flag a post for anything critical. Moderators would plot against users as well.

Then when they redid the site last year the funniest thing happened - they deregulated the forum signups (which had been capped as they "claimed" there were too many members and were working through it) and then anyone could sign up even after they were banned. The forums got feisty again, and the bullying real posters got fed up and left because of the UI changes and the trolls dissipated literally running off scared. New subscribers who knew what they are talking about ran off the trolls or they stopped posting as much. Either that or the moderators had less control to plot against users because of new management.

These days the forums are still junk and full of fake news but it's fun to read occasionally.

You can read posts for free and form your own opinion. Don't pay to join the site. Your opinion has no value. There are too many arbitrary and capricious mods on this forum. Mods are highly biased and delete posts to drive any discussion in particular direction. Some members are above forum rules.